You may have noticed that a Test series gets under way today. Two teams, two groups of fine cricketers, will go at each other over the course of five matches, each match consisting of up to five days, the series itself representing merely the latest staging post of a duel extending over the course of more than a century. The Ashes was effectively conceived in 1882.

 

The Ashes is more than a cricket contest, more even than a sporting event. It is a cultural reference point. It is about two nations, one young, the other old, vying on an oval expanse of turf in one of the most wonderful and idiosyncratic games on the planet.

 

It is about batting, bowling and fielding, but it is also about national pride, anxiety and the various neuroses that inevitably attach to the relationship between a motherland and a former colony.

 

But this year, perhaps more even than in previous incarnations of this duel, the Ashes series represents an opportunity to explore the true nature of competitiveness. Sport is about competition, and competition is about being tough, implacable, what our Australian cousins, rather admiringly, describe as being a “hard bastard”.

 

I do not have a problem with this conception, or this terminology. I have been at Wimbledon these past few days, and I have been struck, as if anew, at just how brutal sport can be.

 

Weaknesses are exposed. Frailties are revealed. The process is Darwinian and, for precisely this reason, compelling. This is how evolution happens, how we find meaning, and how we ultimately create beauty. Competition is in our blood: Aussies, Brits and all nations in between.

 

What worries me, however, is that the notion of competitiveness, of toughness, has undergone a distortion in recent times, and it saddens me deeply that cricket, a game that has long prided itself on a humane interpretation of the meaning of sport, has been at the forefront of this process.

 

I am talking not merely about aggressive sledging, but about a wider malaise that all too often disfigures the game.

 

It is about refusing to clap an incoming batsman. It is about shaping to throw a ball at the stumps when a batsman is in his ground, just for the dubious pleasure of seeing him recoil. It is about squaring up to opponents in and around the dressing room, as happens on a regular basis in international cricket. It is about making insinuations about the sexual fidelity of an opponent’s mother as a bowler is beginning his run-up.

 

Many cricketers, at the top level and in village teams too, equate this kind of behaviour with competitiveness. They think that it shows that they want to win, that they are not effete. They look at those who refuse to indulge in these antics as a bit soft and those who wish to see it eradicated from the game as weaklings. But they are wrong. This kind of behaviour is not evidence of competitiveness, still less mental toughness, and it is time to expose this lie once and for all.

 

Let me convey what I mean by focusing on Roger Federer. “Rodge” has been in sparkling form in SW19 and is through to the quarter-finals. I have watched every one of his matches and noted that he is, in an almost literal sense, a predator. As he glides around the court, not unlike Rudolf Nureyev, he is on constant alert for the scent of blood. If an opponent has an iffy backhand, he finds it. If he has a weak service, Federer steps in to take it early. If the opponent wants to establish a rhythm, Federer finishes the point as early as possible.

 

This, to me, is competitiveness. Federer, in every important sense, is a hard bastard. This is what sport ought to be about: the mutual exploration of each other’s technical and tactical weaknesses. The psychological difficulty of sport consists in facing up to these searching questions. It is about finding answers, rebutting challenges, even as the pressure is ratcheting up.

 

Federer might find an altogether different kind of advantage by abusing an opponent’s mother during changeovers. He might put an adversary off his stride by making to hit a ball at him between points or threatening him in the locker room, but he could also gain an advantage by tampering with his opponent’s racket or spiking his drink. But would this show how much he wanted to win? Or would it merely show that he didn’t know what winning means?

 

I am not comparing sledging to straightforward cheating, here; I am merely arguing that neither reveals true competitiveness. Threatening James Anderson with a “broken f...... arm” did not show that Michael Clarke wanted to win the first Ashes Test in the winter of 2013 more than everyone else. Nasty behaviour is not evidence of competitiveness, it is evidence of one thing and one thing only. Nastiness.

 

This is not to single out Clarke, because this is not his problem, or Australia’s problem alone, because England, as long-time observers know, have often been on the wrong side of the line. Indeed, it is alleged that Clarke was responding in that match to a threat made against one of his team-mates by Anderson. No, this is a problem with an ugly interpretation of what it means to be tough and competitive, one that has travelled well beyond cricket.

 

But it does not have to be like this. When England played New Zealand recently, it was not just cricket that was elevated, it was everyone who watched the matches. The contests showed that it is possible to be tough and honourable at the same time. That it is possible to strive to expose every weakness in an opponent’s game while clapping him to the crease and not feeling an urge to insult his mother. This is Federer-style ruthlessness. It is ruthlessness not merely within the letter of the law, but within the spirit of the game. And it was glorious, life-affirming stuff.

 

This is not just relevant to cricket, but to life. You could almost argue that civilisation was made possible by the recognition that rules, on their own, are never sufficient to create meaningful institutions and rituals. You also need a spirit, an unwritten set of rules that govern the way we act, the way we behave and interact. This spirit may not be easy to codify, but that is precisely why it is so precious. The most valuable things in life are those that you cannot define.

 

So, I hope this series is ruthless. I hope that both teams want to win so badly it hurts. I want to see bouncers, wicked off cutters, leg breaks, sharp catching, and implacable batting. But all these things can exist, and at their best do exist, within an ethos of mutual respect. This is when cricket is at its most inspirational.

(The Times)